MoHagani Magnetek (pronounced: mahogany magnetic). Magnetek is the inaugural Senior Manager of Community Advocacy, Research, and Education (C.A.R.E.) at Pride Foundation. She has bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and English, an MFA in Creative Writing & Literary Arts, and is currently a Cultural Anthropology & Historical Archaeology PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
A social justice activist for BIPOC LGBTQI2S+ people, Magnetek is also a mental wellness advocate who is world-renowned, nationally recognized, and locally accepted as the undisputed people’s champ because she believes poetry is therapeutic. An Alaskan at heart, Magnetek is originally from Houston, Texas, and is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who first moved to Alaska in 1993. Magnetek has been organizing for more than half her life. She is a recipient of the 2023 Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship Award as well as a graduate of Pride Foundation’s TRANSform Culture Fellowship, among other honors.
When not being the Wonder Woman of the C.A.R.E. department, Magnetek is practicing Kung Fu, creatively writing, and getting her roller derby on. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska with her once high school sweetheart now wife yet considers the entire state her stomping grounds. You can just about find her anywhere in Alaska emceeing open mic poetry events and organizing community block parties, such as the longest-running block party in Anchorage, AK for Pride month every Saturday in June.
Her published works include “Shhh Be Quiet” Building Fires in the Snow (2016). “Acrimonious Black Woman Sparks Climate Change Debate with the President” Alaska Women Speak (Spring, 2019). Her novel, “The Mad Fantastic, 2098” (2020). Her play, “for colored ladies who have considered pull-tabs with their last two dollars” (2021). “Death by a Thousand Kisses: A Ms. Mahogany Bones Murder Mystery” Alaska Women Speak (2021) and “That One Magnetek Time I Jumped Over Five Cars” Wheels on Ice: Stories of Cycling in Alaska (2022).
Favorite Place in the Northwest: Anywhere in Alaska frying fish.
Favorite Quote: I done wrestled with an alligator. That’s right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That’s bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick! I’m so mean I make medicine sick! Bad, fast! Fast! Fast! Last night I cut the light off in my bedroom, hit the switch and was in the bed before the room was dark. -Muhammad Ali (1974)